


The Art of Scraping Through

by betts



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Artist Clarke Griffin, Background becho, Cheating, Child Abuse, Dom/sub, F/M, Jealousy, POV Second Person, Paramedic Bellamy Blake, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Punishment, Spanking, Under-negotiated Kink, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-13 21:04:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts
Summary: “Can you share a little bit about why you’re here?” Marcus asks.From afar, Bellamy looked strong and stern, but now, hearing him speak, you can feel his fragility, like crystal waiting for a sonic boom. “I’m a paramedic. We live in the opioid capital of the country. You can put the rest together."You feel a wash of shame — this place is meant for people like him, not you. You who have never truly suffered, who have always been fed and clothed and educated. Across from you sits a man who has seen many deaths, and here you are, crazy from the pressure of good grades and being pretty. You make yourself sick.Or: Clarke has a mental breakdown and gets admitted to an 8-week intensive outpatient program. There, she meets a moody paramedic with whom she forms an intense bond.





	The Art of Scraping Through

**Author's Note:**

> Here was the original prompt: 
> 
> Clarke and Bellamy as roommates in a psychiatric hospital or (if we're going dark) Bellamy is a nurse at a pyschiatric hospital where Clarke is a patient, everytime her meds kick in at night he pays her a little visit which shes only vaguely aware of. She can't tell anyone because they already thinks she crazy. Can be something dubcon/noncon or something sweet where he just visits her to talk, hold her hand, cuddle her, hes just a lonely sad man and shes just a broken girl.
> 
> As you can see I deviated significantly from the prompt, but I tried to maintain the aesthetic. 
> 
> A note on second person: this is not reader-insert. "You" is functioning as any other pronoun, referring specifically to Clarke, not you the reader. I chose this voice because Clarke's headspace is such that she is constantly monitoring and judging herself. She is narrating herself as "you."

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 _There's an art to life's distraction_  
_To somehow escape the burning wait, t_ _he art of scraping through_  
_Some like to imagine_  
_The dark caress of someone else;_ _I guess any thrill will do_

—Hozier, "Someone New"

 

* * *

 

You are not crazy. You hallucinate, you are deluded, but you are not crazy. It’s not crazy to want to die in a world that tries so hard to kill you anyway. It’s not crazy to hate every hideous, wretched inch of yourself. It’s not crazy to feel shame on an atomic level, to believe that you were never meant to exist. And it’s certainly not crazy to want to hurt all the time, be hurt by the people who love you, shrink yourself down into the tiniest possible space so that you cannot want and therefore cannot fail to get what you want. Yet all these doctors and counselors nod at you considerately while they take their notes, and, at the end of a five-hour intake in which a patient social worker coaxes several words out of your catatonic form, you are referred to something called an “intensive outpatient program” — babysitting service, four hours a day, three days a week, for eight fucking weeks.

 

* * *

 

The first time you see him, he is sitting across from you in the waiting room at 7:45 a.m on a Monday. He is twirling a fidget spinner, legs spread wide across a mauve vinyl chair. He is in his thirties, maybe. His t-shirt is baggy and wrinkled, sweatpants stained at the knees. A tattoo of something black and white and blue runs down the length of his arm. His eyes look punched-out and raw, and his hair resembles a blackened, poorly tended fern. He is maybe the most attractive person you have ever seen in real life, made worse by his seeming lack of awareness about it. Your immediate reaction is to get his attention. Sit up straight, don’t let your back touch the chair, like in choir. Smile your bleached, orthodontic smile. Preen and posture, touch your hair, smooth out your clothes. Pretty, like you were taught to be. Pretty, so you can be seen. 

A small voice that sounds like your mother says, god, chill the fuck out.

The waiting room is full. A counselor calls back the substance users, group 1, and a DBT group, 2. Your group, 3, is last, called by your counselor, Marcus, and the rest of you line up at a door, single-file like elementary school. He takes you to a windowless room with soft-lit table lamps and baskets of fruit punch Hi-C and granola bars. You take a seat in the corner. The chairs are the same as in the waiting room. The room is decorated like a Malibu beach house in the nineties, pink and teal and chrome, framed pictures of abstract pastels. Fidget Spinner takes a seat across from you. There are four others in the group, two men and two women, faceless and unimportant now that Fidget Spinner has your attention. 

“Clarke,” the counselor says as he closes the door behind him. “Can you please take off your sunglasses?”

You shake your head. You have not taken off your sunglasses in two days. You wear them to sleep. The world is too bright, even when it is dark. 

Marcus smiles the tight-lipped smile of learned patience, and takes a seat at the head of the room. “Good morning, everyone. Let’s go over the rules real quick. Who would like to start us off?”

A young woman raises her hand. “No cell phones.”

“Right, good,” Marcus says.

Another person adds, “What happens in group stays in group.”

“Excellent.”

The first girl says, “Three strikes and you’re out.” 

You have read these rules already. You signed a form acknowledging them. On the wall behind Marcus, they are hanging up on a hand-written, laminated sign. 

“Great, thank you,” Marcus says. “Since we have someone new, how about we start with introductions? Just your name and what you’re here for. Who wants to go first?”

One of the faceless people pipes up. Charles. A teacher. Mental breakdown. Been here seven weeks. His folder is tattered and over-stuffed, visual evidence of his lengthy stay. Though he does not say it, you suspect homicidal intentions. He has a destructive aura about him. The other three have their turns but you are not listening. You’re too busy watching Fidget Spinner. He seems surprised when it’s his turn, readjusts his red folder, frayed at the corners but thin. Yours is yellow, pristine, with three instructional welcome pages tucked neatly inside, a nurse’s business card with her direct line on it, and a small legal pad. 

“Bellamy.” His face is pinched like speaking is difficult. His voice, like his folder, is worn. “Two weeks.” 

“Can you share a little bit about why you’re here?” Marcus asks.

From afar he looked strong and stern, but now, hearing him speak, you can feel his fragility, like crystal waiting for a sonic boom. “I’m a paramedic. We live in the opioid capital of the country. You can put the rest together.”

You feel a wash of shame — this place is meant for people like him, not you. You who have never truly suffered, who have always been fed and clothed and educated. You have only been hit a few times, and even then, open-handed, and never out of anger. For your own good. Nothing bad has ever happened to you.

“Would you like to share, Clarke?” Marcus asks.

Bellamy can see you, he is looking at you, and you at once want to make yourself larger and also invisible. You shake your head.

A boy your age or maybe older, who doesn’t have a folder at all, says, “Don’t be a coward. We won’t bite.” He picks at the paint on his chair, tiny flakes showering the carpet by his feet. 

“Don’t start, Murphy,” Bellamy says. 

“No pressure, Clarke,” Marcus adds.

Across from you sits a man who has seen many deaths, and here you are, crazy from the pressure of good grades and being pretty. You make yourself sick. 

You shake your head again. You are trembling, now. You do not normally disobey. Marcus, thankfully, moves on. “How about you, John?”

John Murphy leans forward on his knees and watches you. “If she doesn’t have to share, neither do I.”

Marcus’ smile strains. “That’s alright. We are all here voluntarily. Charmaine?”

Charmaine is a stay-at-home mother who used to be a Navy SEAL. Her ex-husband was an abuser. This is her fourth week. You are as afraid of her as you are of John Murphy. Last is Harper, five weeks, an ER nurse who has the opposite problem as Bellamy — she has become completely apathetic to her patients. 

“Thank you all for sharing,” Marcus says. “Who would like to start us off?”

There is a long, agonizing silence. Were you feeling normal, you would fill it with meaningless chatter, petty dramas that plague your everyday life. Sorority mishaps, Raven said this, Zoe did that, can you believe Finn cheated on you? You would revel in their outrage. You would be interesting and witty and make everyone laugh. You would convince them all how smart you are, how kind and capable and trustworthy. You would be the best intensive outpatient group therapy attendee there ever was.

Charles, blessedly, clears his throat. “I had a breakthrough yesterday.”

There is a round of affirmative noise. Marcus congratulates him, and prompts him to continue. Bellamy stares at you.

 

* * *

 

You arrive to IOP early on Wednesday. You have an appointment with the psychiatrist, who puts you on an infantile dose of bupropion — “the skinny horny drug,” Raven calls it — and you almost laugh. You mention the hallucinations and delusions. He shrugs and tells you it’s better to start small. Your prescription will be ready at the CVS by your apartment. 

By the time you are released, group has already started. Harper is talking about her toxic sister. Bellamy is sitting where you sat on Monday. There are enough chairs that no one has to sit beside anyone else. Out of spite, you take a seat next to him. Charles and Charmaine nod along thoughtfully. Murphy picks at the chipping paint. When Harper starts to tear up, Charmaine passes her a box of tissues. She takes one and dabs at her big doe eyes. You seethe — is Harper prettier than you? Does Bellamy dig the young MILF vibe? She has a post-pregnancy tummy and double-chin, but her hair falls in perfect, highlighted ringlets, and she has the kind of complexion that makes her look like a model in a commercial for face wash. You decide you loathe her. 

“Does anyone have any feedback for Harper?” Marcus asks.

“Look,” Murphy says. “Just cut your sister out of your life and move on.”

“I can’t,” Harper says. “She’s my sister.”

“So? A bitch is a bitch no matter her blood.”

You expect Marcus to say something about the profanity, but he only smiles blandly and looks down at his clipboard. 

“She’s not a bitch,” Harper says. “She’s sick, like me. Like you. Like the rest of us.”

“I don’t think anyone here stole their sibling’s ATM card and cleaned out their savings.” Murphy looks around. “Unless I’m wrong? Bellamy? You steal three grand from anyone lately?”

Bellamy looks away and clenches his jaw. “No.” 

“Charles, what about you?” Murphy asks. “Recently kept any of your loved ones from going on a well-deserved vacation?”

“I agree,” Charles says evenly, “that maybe legal action should be pursued.”

“She’ll give it _back,”_ Harper insists, and another tear drops from her eye. Her perfect face turns blotchy and you get sick satisfaction from her pain.

It goes on like this for nearly an hour. Marcus only intervenes to prompt the discussion uselessly further. You and Bellamy stay silent. You space out and begin doodling on your folder. Bellamy sinks down in his seat. His knee settles against your bare thigh. You decide not to move, and let his warmth seep into you in the cold room.

 

* * *

 

At noon, you are released. Out front, Bellamy leans against a column smoking a cigarette. You stand a few feet away, clutching your folder and water bottle, pretending you are waiting for a ride, even though your car keys are in your pocket and your Bimmer is at the back of the lot. 

“Cigarette?” Bellamy asks.

The last time you smoked, you were sixteen, and it made you want to vomit. You immediately scrubbed your tongue with a toothbrush and vowed never to do it again. 

You nod.

Bellamy slips one out of the pack — Lucky Strikes, naturally — and hands it to you. You settle it between your lips and lean in. He cups his hand over his lighter and you inhale, watch the cherry light up. You pretend to look relaxed, take a pull and count to twelve before you take another. You do not breathe the smoke into your lungs, only hold it in your mouth and spew it back out. You cannot wait to scrub your tongue.

“It gets better,” he says, and nods to the doors of the outpatient center. “It’s not always boring like today. Usually somebody cries or gets into a fight or something.”

You nod like you understand. You have questions like, why does he still play with fidget spinners? How old is he? Does he think you’re pretty? Does he think you’re crazy? Is he crazier than you?

A car drives up, an old Accord driven by a girl who looks younger than you. She is blasting Fiona Apple and a cigarette is hanging from her pretty mouth like yours. Her hair is straight and brown and she’s wearing a crop top that barely covers her cute tits. Maybe you will dye your hair tonight. Maybe you will buy a crop top. Maybe you will take a sledgehammer to your car so it looks like hers.

“See you Friday, Ray-Bans,” Bellamy says, flicking his half-finished cigarette across the asphalt, and climbs into the car.

 

* * *

 

Friday morning, you track Bellamy as he signs in at the front desk, and look away as he slouches down beside you. He has an iced coffee from Starbucks in one hand, his tattered folder in the other. “Fuck Fridays.”

Is he talking to you? He must be talking to you. You doodle on your folder. The front is covered in jagged shapes and abstractions of landscapes and portraits. You hope Bellamy does not notice pieces of himself scattered throughout, as much as you hope he does. Your education handouts are covered similarly, unreadable. You hate the tackiness of the information packets you have received, with their simple, happy-faced line drawings and myriad spelling errors. You cannot bear to look at them, so you cover them in beautiful things.

 _WHY?_ you write in a trained script on the empty backside of your folder. You nudge him with your elbow and point to it.

“Art therapy. We color placemats and shit.”

 _I like art,_ you write in a different script.

“This isn’t art. It’s busywork.”

 You all get herded into a different room today, one that looks like an elementary school art classroom, complete with drawings tacked up on the walls. A large paper table cloth is draped over a series of folding tables lined up together. An enormous pile of clay sits on one end, bowls of slip positioned evenly down the table. You take a seat beside Bellamy. The condensation of his iced coffee makes a fast, damp ring on the paper.

A volunteer from a local art studio, Indra, explains in a very stern tone that you will be making pinch pots. 

“When was the last time you made pinch pots?” Bellamy whispers to you. You feel his breath ghost your neck.

 _Kindergarten,_ you write on the paper tablecloth in your normal handwriting. After Bellamy reads it, you scribble it out. Indra demonstrates the process in a quiet monotone as if she is training you for battle.

You do not admit how excited you are to make pinch pots. You wish you could convey to these people that art is your _thing,_  and that in a year, you will have a degree in art education. You wish you could ask to be noticed, but you know you must be humble and quiet, even if someone asks. You must not boast or brag.

Indra passes out lumps of clay, styrofoam plates, plastic forks and other tools to make patterns. At the opposite side of the table, Marcus says, “I want you to assess your mood on a one to ten scale.” No one discernibly reacts, which leads you to believe he asks the same thing every week, though you cannot figure out why, nor can you assess your own mood on such a scale. You don’t remember the last time you felt a genuine emotion outside the fear of rejection or the simple pleasure of someone’s attention. Exhaustion, stress, boredom — these are the only other emotions you know.

Marcus plays some relaxing music on his cracked iPhone. Bellamy pushes his clay away and rests his head on his arms, the way you used to fall asleep in study hall. 

You spend the next hour eagerly and methodically rolling out identical balls of clay, and turn them into snakes which you proceed to coil into rings. You attach the rings to your base by scoring the clay and adding slip. You zero in on your task, and distantly listen to Marcus talk about mindfulness. Clay cakes beneath your nails. Bellamy has fallen asleep and is breathing deeply, his coffee only half-finished, ice melting into a cloudy layer at the top. You steal his clay.

Indra comes by and squeezes your shoulder, tells you you’re doing a good job. You preen under her praise at the same time you smugly tell yourself you are probably more qualified than she is to teach this class.

At the end of two hours, Marcus tells you to clean up. Bellamy jolts awake, wipes at his mouth, stares confusedly at his plate, empty of clay. He glances at your pot, which is in the shape of a vase, daisies etched into each ring. You gather your supplies. You have made more of a mess than anyone else. You have slip climbing up to your elbows and your skin itches as it dries.

“Did you make that?” he asks.

You nod. 

“Wow.”

Charles echoes his agreement. The rest of the room follows. Even Murphy reluctantly compliments you. You pretend to be humble, and nod your thanks. Bellamy helps you clean up. You reluctantly scrub your arms free of the clay, though you revel in the dark shadows that remain under your fingernails. You don’t know what number you were when you walked in, but now you are at a ten.

 

* * *

 

Either the bupropion works quickly or a placebo effect has taken place — by Monday, your tongue feels looser, your shoulders lighter, though you keep your sunglasses on. Bellamy sits beside you again. 

There is a new person today. He’s tall and thin and young, and he’s wearing a pair of goggles on his head. Marcus welcomes him and prompts everyone, like on your first day, to introduce themselves. You are no longer the new girl.

Bellamy seems more tired today than usual. He only says, “Bellamy. Paramedic. On leave.” He closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall.

It’s your turn now. You spoke earlier to order a sausage egg McMuffin, your first words in over a week. You know you can do it again. 

“I’m Clarke,” you say. Beside you, Bellamy jerks to attention. “I’m a college student. Art education. I had a psychotic break.” 

Marcus waits for you to say more, but you don’t, so he smiles and says, “Very good. Thank you for sharing.”

The new boy is very unlike you. When it’s his turn, he says his name is Jasper and he’s nineteen and he never learned how to read. He waits as if he wants you all to laugh, but no one does, and he fidgets and starts in on a story about a nervous breakdown. You listen and nod along, glance at the clock, and listen some more. Eventually he grows emotional, and starts talking about how much _pressure_ is on him all the time. His grandma wants him to mow the lawn, but he has a raid every day at two, and she _knows_ that, but she won’t stop _nagging_ him — 

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Murphy says.

Jasper stops, surprised. “What?”

“Come on. You live there, right? With your grandma?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you pay rent?”

“No.”

“Do you buy or cook your own food?”

“Well. No, but —”

“Then mow the fucking lawn. She’s your grandma, for christsake. You know what I wouldn’t give to be able to mow the lawn for my grandma? To have someone who loves me, who puts a roof over my head, keeps me fed?”

“I have a job,” Jasper says. “I work full-time. I’m a security guard.”

Murphy rubs an exasperated hand down his face. “You think you work hard, huh? You come in here, start bitching immediately about fucking _chores_ —”

“Lighten up, Murphy,” Bellamy says.

Marcus looks on with interest, seemingly with no intention of interrupting.

“You’re really going to defend him?” Murphy says. “You save people’s lives. He’s whining about some fucking chores.” 

“Does anyone else have feedback for Jasper?” Marcus asks brightly.

“Yeah,” Murphy says. “Learn some fucking perspective.”

Marcus turns his vacant smile to Murphy. “You seem upset, John. Why don’t you share next?”

Murphy juts his chin at you. “I want her to share. We haven’t had anyone proper crazy before.”

“Only if you feel up to it, Clarke,” Marcus adds.

Bellamy nudges you with his knee. You think it might be intentional this time. Encouragement. Then again, you are still probably delusional. You are afraid to speak — you relate to Jasper. You’re only a year older than he is. You’re just a stupid college student. When you graduate, you won’t even have loans. You have a trust fund. You’re on your mother’s health insurance. You shouldn’t be here.

At the same time, you feel compelled to embellish the truth so they will know you fit in. So they will know your sorrows are as deep as theirs — Harper, with her newborn son and thieving sister. Charles, fighting a losing battle with the public school education system. Charmaine, who has had three miscarriages, and now, six months pregnant, has unspeakable anxieties about losing this baby, too. But you are not like them. You don’t know their pain.

Your voice comes out scratchy and quiet. “I feel things, sometimes. Crawling on me.” You want to lift your hand to demonstrate a spider on your thigh, but it is too heavy. You move through thick syrup, a fly encased in amber. “Small things, at first. Bugs. Then mice. Then — I started hearing things, too. Like, animals in the walls. And I see things sometimes, just movement in the corner of my vision, but nothing’s there.” It feels as crazy to say it now as it did when you spoke to the intake counselor. You always thought hallucinations were humanoid in nature. Mean voices and towering beasts. You didn’t know they could be so benign, more irritating than frightening. “And, um. I have these delusions, I guess, that, like, all food that comes into my house is contaminated. Because of the mice. But there aren’t any mice. So I have to eat out. Or, I guess I just haven’t been eating.”

“Do you know what led up to this?” Marcus asks. 

“It’s stupid,” you say, shifting in your seat. Your knee brushes Bellamy’s this time. 

“Stupider than complaining about mowing a lawn?” Murphy says.

“Murphy,” Bellamy says sharply.

“In the art department, there was this rumor about me,” you begin, but your throat stops up. Your nose starts to run and your eyes water. You wipe your nose with your wrist. You are not feeling any emotion and yet you are crying — this is what the break felt like. So many tears. So much screaming. But empty. Hollow. Nothing really led up to it, or so you thought at the time. You were having an okay day. You were cleaning your room, sorting your laundry, and suddenly a wave of unbearable exhaustion came over you. For days before, you had been swatting at tiny, invisible beasts crawling up your arms and legs. You had asked your mother to call an exterminator for all the rattling in the walls, but she insisted there was none. You had been seeing moving shadows, but thought nothing of it. You’d barely eaten in days. All light had become too bright, and you began wearing your sunglasses inside. Sound had become too loud, even the air conditioning, the cicadas and birds, and you wore earplugs. Every time you opened the refrigerator, you saw maggots wriggling in the food, and ran to the bathroom to dry heave. 

You lay down to nap and quickly fell into a lucid nightmare that you can no longer remember. You woke up unsure if you were still in a nightmare. You ran to the bathroom to puke, but nothing came out, and you hid between the toilet and sink, knees to your chest, and began screaming. The floor crumbled and fell away to a whirling ocean of rats and bugs. That is how your mother found you, shrieking and untethered, and took you to the hospital.

Bellamy passes you a tissue box. You pluck one. It is thin and scratchy like hospital tissues. You reach under your sunglasses to dab your eyes. “My girlfriend thought I was cheating on her. I wasn’t. And so she started this rumor I was abusive.” Tears roll down your face. It’s not a big deal, you tell yourself. It’s all over. “There was a Title IX and everything. All our friends had to testify. It got dropped, but — I still have to go back there. I have to face all those people knowing they think I’m an abuser.”

No one says anything. You can’t stand the silence.

“And it’s worse because — my other ex really _was_ abusive. He tried to kill me. I thought, I thought before I met her, I wouldn’t be able to love again, after all that. And she just — you know, the weird thing is that when my other ex put a knife to my throat, it didn’t seem like a big deal. But this — what if I can’t get into grad school because I have a Title IX? What if I can’t get a job?”

“You think not getting into grad school is worse than someone trying to kill you?” Murphy asks.

You nod. You know you sound insane. That’s why you’re here.

“Does anyone else have any feedback for Clarke?” Marcus asks.

More silence. Maybe you were lying. Not objectively lying, but maybe you were making it sound worse than it really was. How many people could possibly know about the Title IX? Maybe you’re just paranoid. At least Lexa graduated last month. And Finn trying to kill you wasn’t nearly as big of a deal as him cheating on you. He didn’t _hurt_ you, he just tried to scare you because you threatened to tell Raven that he was still sleeping with you, even after he said he’d stop. You didn’t even call the police. And really, wasn’t it your fault for threatening him anyway? 

You brace yourself for Murphy to accost you the way he’d done to Jasper. For Bellamy to bring up how many people he’s seen die. For Harper to note the cost of your sunglasses and bring up how she has no money of her own anymore. For Charmaine to show you a picture of her bloodied face from when her ex last laid into her. 

“That sucks,” Murphy says. A round of affirmative noise follows. 

You exhale. Nothing was resolved, but strangely, you feel better.

 

* * *

 

“Gonna talk to me today?” Bellamy asks after you are released. You pretend again to wait for your ride. This time you stand closer to him, maybe too close, and he does not move away. Sometimes men do not notice the physical proximity of others. They have never had to train their bodies and minds to fit a given space.

You hesitate. “No.”

He laughs, smoke billowing between his teeth. 

“Really, though,” he says. “Week two. Feeling better yet?”

You have never answered this question honestly. You always give the answer that will lead to what you want. If you are skipping school, no. If you want to go out with friends, yes. What do you want from Bellamy, and how can you get it from him? 

You shrug, deciding it is too complicated to answer in either truths or lies.

He nods, takes a drag from his cigarette, looks out onto the main road. Across the river, the cityline rises into low-hanging clouds. The heat is nearly suffocating; wavy tendrils lift off of cars and asphalt. You are grateful you had a psychotic break in the middle of summer, so you do not have to miss any class.

“What about you?” you ask. Your voice sounds like a wisp, quiet enough that you are not sure he heard you.

“Better than where I came from.” He takes a final tug from the cigarette and flicks the butt into the parking lot. “I started inpatient. Suicide attempt. Then they shuffled me here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s whatever. This place is stupid and they treat us like children, but it’s a change of pace. Nobody needs saving here. Not in the way I can help at least.” He leans against the column and shoves his hands in his pockets. He looks less rumpled today than he did last week — hair cleaner and curlier, shirt free of wrinkles, jeans instead of sweatpants. You wonder if he did it for you, to impress you. Your mother’s voice in your head tells you to stop being a narcissist. The world does not revolve around you.

“When you start here,” he continues, “you think, like, I’m not as bad off as these guys. I have my shit together. Then you realize, in some ways, you’re worse. You forget people haven’t seen the things you’ve seen. They don’t know what this city is really like at night. Shit’s different now, you know? Multiple ODs a night. Drag people in, pump them full of methadone, let them go. Next week, they call again. And you know it’s only a matter of time before you get a call and you’re too late. I used to tell myself, you can’t save everybody. But now it’s like I can’t save anyone.”

Bellamy’s ride is late today. The longer you wait, the more suspicious you become, but he doesn’t seem to notice. 

“My dad died in an ambulance,” you say, like it’s a fun anecdote, and not one of the worst things that has ever happened to you. “He had a heart attack when I was nine.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I still dream about him.” You couldn’t speak for so long, and now you wish you could shut up.

“Yeah?”

“He’s almost always — betrayed, I guess? That we moved on.”

He nods. “Nightmares. Flashbacks. What are you vigilant about?”

Vigilance. It’s a word your intake counselors have used a dozen times but you’re not sure what it means in this context. You keep telling people you have no “hypervigilance.” You wonder if this is what post-group discussions are like, a casual comparison of symptoms like a trading card game.

“Like, okay,” he continues, “you walk into a room with a handful of people. Not IOP. Like, a class or something. What do you look for?”

“If I’m the hottest person in the room.”

He barks a laugh — not at you, you think, but in surprise at your honesty. You’re surprised, too. You weren’t this honest even in your intake. You didn’t want to sound like a bitch.

“In this proverbial room, are you?” he asks.

You lift your sunglasses to your head and meet his gaze fully for the first time. “You tell me.”

You expect him, like other boys, to duck his head in shyness, or jump on the opportunity to hit on you. Instead, he stares at you, unflinching, and asks, “Who made you believe you’re ugly?”

“My mother.”

“You’re not.”

The Accord drives up. Today, the girl’s hair is in a high ponytail, and she’s blasting Aerosmith. You get a good look at her: freckles, young, beautiful, disaffected.

Bellamy opens the door. “Good job today, Ray-Bans.”

 

* * *

 

Whenever a patient is done with their eight weeks, there’s a graduation ceremony in which they pick a small, decorated rock with a cheerful word on it like HARMONY or ACCEPTANCE. Then, the rock gets passed around, and each person holds it tightly in their hands and says something they appreciate about the graduate, so the rock will be imbued with positivity. Charles, Charmaine, and Harper have all graduated.

Some, however, don’t graduate. They get kicked out. The three-strike rule states that if a patient misses three sessions, they’re out of the program. Many get kicked out — Diana, a businesswoman who only came to two sessions; Kyle, an engineer who missed three sessions over two weeks; and a few others who didn’t leave an impression on you. The group grows and shrinks and changes every day. You have your introduction speech down to three sentences. _I’m Clarke. I’m a college student. I’m in recovery from a breakdown._ Bellamy’s pares down slowly word by word, week by week, and now he only says, _Bellamy. Paramedic._ Murphy offers a lazy salute with two fingers. 

Currently the group consists of you, Bellamy, Murphy, Jacapo, Blythe, and Miranda. Every day you arrive hopeful that Murphy has been kicked out or will graduate. He has been in IOP nine weeks but asks for extensions. His conflict-oriented nature makes you uncomfortable, but you try to tell yourself it’s good practice for the real world. In the real world, men are aggressive, and you need to learn to stand up for yourself. Most patients are agreeable. They nod their heads and make sympathetic noises. You have gotten better at choosing empathy over benign hatred, at tackling your impostor syndrome, at listening without judgment or self-comparison. Murphy drills down to the awful truths people tend to avoid, utters blaming statements which make them complicit in their own tragedies. He doles out “simple” solutions and advice, and holds everyone accountable for the things they say they’re going to do. He rarely talks about himself. All you know is that he is on disability, and has a girlfriend he thinks no longer loves him, who says he isn’t ambitious enough.

You have learned many things over the past few weeks. Your folder grows thicker each day with new handouts, packets, progress reports. You learn names of concepts that have only existed to you in abstraction, and can point them out in yourself and others. You have an entire sheet of red flags which is currently your bible. The hallucinations disappear. You ate a meal with your mother in the dining room last week. Lexa texted you and you did not reply. For the first time in months, you have hope.

In week four, you have an EMDR appointment with Marcus. You think EMDR sounds like magic. Astrology. Hypnotism. He hands you a pair of walkman headphones — the cheap kind with the metal band and the soft squishies on the earpieces — and two little paddles you hold in each hand. The paddles vibrate with the sound of beeping in each ear, back and forth, back and forth, like a metronome. The room is dim. Marcus’ desk is covered in teetering stacks of papers and books. You find his presence calming, as much as his passivity in group irritates you.

He asks you to think of a memory that hurts you. You zero in on the moment Finn tried to kill you. Cold blade at your throat. Wild eyes. The shameful pulse of arousal you felt and the total lack of fear. You dared him — _Do it,_ you said. _Fucking kill me. See if Raven loves you then._ You pause the memory and walk around inside of it. Marcus talks you down from ten in a soothing voice. Pain surges through your body. Later he will tell you that trauma is kept in the body, and it hurts when it’s released. You cry and cry, and this time you feel something, you can actually feel something, a real emotion. Many emotions. Sorrow and rage, fear and triumph.  

Marcus writes on a sheet of paper: _I feel ______ because ______. It is understandable why I feel this way._ Your tears mar the ink. I feel scared and stressed and hopeless because I have to go back to school in August and I think everyone will hate me. It is understandable why I feel this way. You cry harder, like a steam valve being released. Your entire body aches. You empty Marcus’ tissue box. He witnesses you while you weep. It is understandable why I feel this way. It is understandable. I am understandable. I am understood.

 

* * *

 

It is week six, the education portion of the day. You are learning about not being judgmental, filling out a worksheet in which you explain what you would do in each anger-inducing scenario. Someone cutting you off in traffic. The betrayal of a close friend. A bad day. 

You ignore the lines and draw your answers in the margins: placid-faced drivers on busy highways, half of Lexa’s face, rain clouds.

You glance at Bellamy’s sheet. His writing is small and he hunches over the page, his hand curling around the words. He writes and writes, past the three given lines and into the bottom margin. His pen is red. He turns the page over, and keeps writing. 

Marcus’ phone alarm goes off. Bellamy keeps writing, but the discussion begins without him. Marcus gives a little spiel about anger management. 

“If emotions require actions,” Marcus says, “then what actions can be correlated with anger that cause no harm to yourself or others?”

Clarke spaces out for a time. The side of her hand is coated in graphite. Bellamy finally stops writing and cracks his knuckles, crosses his arms over his chest and spreads out in his chair. His leg touches yours under the table, although there is ample room for his own space. You remind yourself not to read too much into it, that you are delusional. 

You draw on your handout until the entire page is nearly covered. You click your pencil and discover you have run out of lead. Now you are forced to pay attention.

Murphy is on a rant. You cannot figure out how the discussion got here. “I just have no fucking respect for people who can’t buckle down and get shit done. You can’t live your life under your mother’s skirt. Can’t pretend your _hobbies_ or whatever creative bullshit are worth anything to society.” He reaches across the table, grabs your worksheet, and holds it up. “Entitled brats these days all think they can shit on a canvas and get famous.” He tosses the page back down. “Get a real job and suffer like the rest of us.”

Is he talking about you? He can’t be talking about you. You didn’t say anything. He has to be talking about you. He held up your sheet. But he barely knows anything about you, about your views on art, about how you want to work in underprivileged communities, or join the Peace Corps. You want to do good in the world. Everyone saw your sheet. Your drawing of Lexa. Your clouds and four-lane highway. 

“Being an artist _is_ a real job,” you say. “It’s hard work. You’d know that if you had an ounce of creativity in you.”

“I’m _very_ creative, thank you,” Murphy says. “I just don’t disillusion myself into believing I can make a career of it.”

The world narrows. Your heart pounds. “Anyone who works hard enough can make a career from art. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He laughs. He _laughs_ at you. “You mean anyone with Mommy’s six-figure income.”

You swallow repeatedly. Tears flood your eyes. Everyone is staring at you, even Bellamy. His hand is clenched into a fist under the table. You lower your sunglasses from the top of your head to cover your eyes. Mortification overwhelms you as you cry, actually _cry,_ quiet whimpered sobs like a petulant child. You don’t know what is happening. The bupropion makes you feel things. The EMDR makes you feel things. Now you are feeling too many things and the things are coming out of your eyes. 

“Say one more word, Murphy,” Bellamy begins.

“Somebody’s not using their non-judgmental tactics,” Murphy says.

“John,” Marcus adds evenly, and that is how you know this is bad, that even Marcus has intervened. 

“I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t even fucking talking about her, and she took offense and attacked me. You saw it. I was talking about something completely different, and she said I wasn’t creative. I’m _very_ creative, okay. Very.”

You are still crying. Someone pushes a tissue box in your direction. You wish you could leave without being penalized. But, you remind yourself, this is a space for emotional reaction, for confrontation, for being uncomfortable and feeling your feelings. If you can’t cry here, you can’t cry anywhere.

Bellamy puts his hand on your thigh, and squeezes reassuringly.

 

* * *

 

“What happened back there?” Bellamy asks once you are released and Murphy has gotten into his shitty pickup truck and driven away.

You shrug.

“Don’t go quiet on me again.”

You scrape the tip of your Keds across a crack in the concrete. “It was too much.”

“What was?”

Sometimes you think these debriefs with Bellamy are more helpful than the sessions themselves. It is here you can be honest. It is here you will not be judged, or looked upon with feigned sympathy, or face long stretches of uncomfortable silence. Bellamy will not give you shitty advice. He tells you the truth, always honest, but not combative like Murphy.

Your head hurts from crying. “He insulted me. My entire life’s work. He humiliated me.”

“So?”

You glance up at him, surprised. “So, it hurt my feelings.”

“Who gives a fuck what Murphy thinks? He’s an angry kid who doesn’t know shit. You don’t need his approval to pursue a career.”

You stare at him through your sunglasses. His words do not land.

“Look.” He puts a hand on your shoulder. “You can’t let some idiot you barely know shake your entire foundation. His opinion has nothing to do with you.”

“His _opinion_ invalidated me.”

“Someone’s opinion _can’t_ invalidate you. You’re already valid.”

Oh. Reality shatters into glittering shards. Your worldview expands abruptly, and you are dizzy with the sudden shift. John Murphy’s opinion of art cannot hurt you. No one’s opinions can hurt you. People are allowed to dislike you and everything you stand for, and it has no bearing on who you are. Valid, you chant to yourself. You are valid. You are understood. And even when you are not understood, you are still valid. 

You take a short step forward and wrap your arms around Bellamy. He smells like cigarettes and sunlight. You tuck your face into his neck. He hesitates a long moment before closing you in his embrace, clutching you tightly to him, far longer than a hug between strangers should be. Perhaps he is no longer a stranger. Perhaps you are no longer delusional. Perhaps he is a friend.

 

* * *

 

Normally, Bellamy arrives only a minute or two before your group gets called back. Today, Friday, he is already in the waiting room when you arrive, slumped down in a chair with his eyes closed. You sign in and say hello to the receptionist, who knows you by name now. A few weeks ago, you bought everyone doughnuts. 

You sit beside Bellamy. He does not open his eyes, but waves lazily at you. You give him peace, play on your phone silently while you wait before you have to put it away. Of the many things you’ve grown to hate about IOP, not being allowed to look at your phone is near the top of the list. 

Bellamy has fallen asleep, his head lightly touching your shoulder. Marcus calls you back, and Bellamy doesn’t move. Hesitantly, you wiggle his knee. 

“Bellamy,” you say gently. You have never called him by name before. “Time to go back.”

He jolts awake. You follow him to the art room, shamefully excited. Today Indra has brought watercolors and black Sharpies. She teaches you how to make mandalas, and for those who do not want to attempt a mandala, how to doodle mindfully. Marcus asks you to assess your mood by number again. You think you are at a six or seven. Bellamy nudges your thigh with his fist. You look down. He is holding up two fingers. Bruises coat his hand, knuckles split and scabbed over. His fingers look swollen, or maybe they were stubby to begin with.

You frown at him and mouth, _What happened?_

He waves his hand as if to say, _I’ll tell you later._ He pushes your shared markers and watercolors toward you and puts his head on the table. You eagerly begin your mandala.

At the end of your two hours, you are solidly at a nine. You work down to the wire, and use break time to help Indra clean up, forgetting that Bellamy maybe wanted to talk to you. You wonder, if you had regular group today, if he would have shared. He returns with Murphy in tow, smelling like cigarette smoke, looking like he did on your first day — rumpled and lank, greasy hair and hollow eyes. It is the hottest day of the year. As he re-enters the room, he lifts the hem of his shirt and wipes the sweat from his face. You take a gratuitous glance at his belly, which looks surprisingly soft, almost chubby. His tattoo covers his entire side, down his torso and into his basketball shorts, though you do not get a good look. 

For the remaining two hours, Marcus breaks out several board games. Bellamy chooses chess and the two of you set up on the floor in the corner of the room. 

“I’m bad at chess,” you tell him.

“Yeah?” He sets up the black pieces over the board. You realize he only says _yeah?_ as a filler when he doesn’t know what else to say, sometimes when he’s not even listening. 

“I used to play with my best friend Wells. He always won.”

“Where’s Wells now?”

“Dead.”

Bellamy pauses on his way to set a pawn on the board. “Mean mom. Dead dad. Abusive exes. Dead best friend. Anything else you’re hiding?”

“I got my tonsils out when I was eight.”

“Was that a traumatic experience?”

“I got addicted to ice cream and gained weight. It took me until thirteen to get a boyfriend.”

“Thirteen, huh. Late bloomer.”

He gestures for you to move first, and you do, a pawn up two spaces, how Wells always started. You feel like you should be sad, playing a game so central to your friendship with him, but you’re not. You’ve never once been sad over Wells’ death. You wonder if it will catch up with you now that you can feel things again.

“I tend to date older guys,” you say, and realize the connection is tangential at best. It sounds like you are reaching, begging for his attention. Probably because you are. Then again, you’ve been begging for his attention for weeks and he has not seemed to mind. “He was sixteen. My first boyfriend, I mean. Not Wells.”

He moves his knight. “Creepy.”

“Fourteen, I dated a nineteen-year-old.”

“More creepy.” You frown, worried this means he is not interested in you because he is so much older. He is thirty-four. You asked a couple weeks ago. You also found out the girl who picks him up is his sister, and that he normally drives a motorcycle, but it’s in the shop.

“Eighteen, a thirty-two-year-old. Briefly.” By _briefly_ you mean you met him on the internet and had sex with him three times over the course of a month while his wife was away on business. You were rebounding over Finn, and had yet to meet Lexa. “My friend Raven always jokes that when I’m thirty I’ll be dating a corpse.”

He doesn’t respond at all. You wonder if he heard you, heard what you are really saying. His eyebrows pinch in concentration. He frowns. Within a few moves, without thinking, you’ve got him cornered. His attention is on his knights, but his king is exposed to your bishop. 

“Check,” you say, belatedly. 

He will move his knight again, probably. You quickly line up your next four moves. Wells used to have a dozen moves planned out at any given time. He could see the whole game unfold from the beginning.

“Finn was my longest relationship,” you continue. You’re not sure if he’s even listening. You know you sound vapid and desperate but you’re having a hard time controlling yourself. You miss when you were unable to speak. “Three years.”

Bellamy moves his queen to cover his king. Not the move you were expecting, but still a bad one. You snatch up his queen with your bishop, knowing he will take your bishop next. 

Bellamy, surprised, says, “Are you kidding me?”

“Finn was only three months older than me. Really goes to show that age doesn’t matter.”

He takes your bishop. You grab his exposed rook with a pawn.

“How are you doing that?” he asks.

“You started the game defensively. I took the offensive position. Now you’re reacting to my moves and I control the board.”

He glares at you. “You said you were bad at this.”

“I am.”

“Fuck you.”

You’re startled by his aggression. “Sorry.”

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from talking, and wish you could pull out your phone. You lick your thumb and rub at a Sharpie stain on your finger. He is definitely mad at you now. You won’t cry. You won’t.

He moves his knight again, uselessly. You know he has not noticed that he’s put his other rook in the line of your remaining bishop. His side of the board is clumped together, only two of his pieces out in the middle. Yours are spread around. If you took his rook now, he would be in check again. In a couple more moves, checkmate. The way he plays reminds you of how he acts in group — shoulders shrugged up, assessing everyone, deflecting conversation from himself. You wonder what he is hiding. On your beloved handout, you recognize this is a red flag. Bellamy himself is a walking red flag. He is hot and cold with you, ill-tempered, moody, lacks tools of introspection, and can’t take any of his own advice.

You shift a pawn a space up. He takes one of your knights with his. You move your rook down the board to a random spot, and keep your finger on it as you pretend to look around and see that it cannot be taken. You go back and forth like this a few more times, Bellamy thinking for a minute or longer while you watch him self-consciously. You continue making nonsensical, risky moves across the board. Lacking anything better to do, you move a pawn.

“Stop trying to let me win,” he says.

“I’m not.”

With a frustrated growl, Bellamy sweeps all the pieces off the board. They scatter and roll across the floor. Everyone looks up from their games to stare. 

“Bellamy,” Marcus begins, standing to impede Bellamy’s path toward the door.

“I’m leaving,” he says. “Count me absent. I don’t care.”

With shaking hands, you start putting the pieces back in the box. They are all over. Under the art table, the sink, the supply cabinet, Jasper’s foot. Marcus comes over and helps.

“Are you alright?” he asks softly.

You nod, though you are choking back tears, and know you cannot hold it forever. You hate how much you cry now. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —”

“It’s okay, Clarke. It’s not your fault.”

“Can I please use the restroom?” You force your chin to remain steady so Marcus cannot notice how close you are to losing your shit.

“Go ahead.”

You run out the door, past the reception desk, and outside. Bellamy isn’t by the column where he usually waits. You glance around the parking lot, seeing no one, not even staff leaving for lunch, and circle the building, where you find him lying in the empty field beside the building. Your whole body is shaking, and you know you should be upset for different reasons than you are, should be taking deep breaths in the bathroom before returning to the art room. You should be mad at him for going off like that. You didn’t do anything wrong, Marcus’ voice says. You’re such an idiot, you tell yourself. This is all your fault. 

You find yourself walking toward Bellamy through the tall, warm grass. Distantly you wonder if he is capable of killing you. You decide you do not care.

“Go away, Clarke,” Bellamy says.

It is the first time he has called you by your name. His eyes are closed. The sun beats down. You sit cross-legged next to him, wondering how you can help. You fear you are too young and stupid to offer your consolation. Silently, you begin tugging at blades of grass.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Bellamy says. “You’ll get an absence.”

“I’d rather make sure you’re okay.”

“Don’t be nice to me.”

You don’t really know how not to be nice. You’ve been nice your entire life, even at the cost of your own health and comfort. You were taught to be nice and beautiful above all other things. You line a dozen blades of grass neatly in your palm. 

“Don’t be silent, either.”

“What do you want me to be?”

“Mean. Violent. Anything but nice and quiet.”

You take your handful of grass clippings and drop them on his face. Petty revenge feels good. He sputters and rolls to his side. “What the fuck?”

He gets to his knees and stares at you incredulously. You know you look like you’ve been crying. Your face is probably puffy and red. He grabs up a handful of grass and throws it at you. You close your eyes against the onslaught and blindly shove him. He takes your arms and pushes you down against the hard ground. You wrestle each other, taking fistfulls of grass and smashing them against each other’s faces, in mouths and eyes. He is stronger than you, and so much larger. His body is harder than it looks. He pins you at both wrists, breathless, his hair covered in grass. 

“Don’t you dare knee me in the balls,” he says sternly, but he’s trying not to smile. Your fingertips pulse in his tight grip. 

“You told me to be mean and violent.”

“Go back to being nice.”

Like a switch, you obey. Your muscles relax and go limp underneath him. You are more aroused than you have ever been.

He searches you with his eyes. You feel exposed to him. It is the first time he has ever truly seen you, that you have had the entirety of his attention. His gaze feels like a laser beam shining straight into your darkest crevices. You want him to know all of you. 

“Like doing what you’re told, huh?” he asks, voice lower now. 

You nod slowly. In the fray, your shirt slipped down and now your bra is exposed. You are happy you wore your favorite baby-pink bra. You wish you could show him your matching underwear, tell him how you dress for him every day, to be noticed by him. He lets his eyes fall to your chest.

“You’re too young for me,” he says. 

“I know.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

You soar instantly to a ten. “I know.”

 

* * *

 

You ditch the final hour of IOP to get lunch. Bellamy snatches your sunglasses from your head and puts them on. You cross the parking lot teetering too close to one another, and wish he would put his arm around you. You wonder if you’ll begin dating after IOP. If you will grow to love him more than you loved Lexa and Finn. If he will be the love of your life, and you will marry and have children. The asphalt heats the soles of your shoes. You imagine your mother’s disappointment when you tell her in several months’ time that you are in love with a paramedic fourteen years your senior whom you met in a behavioral clinic. You daydream briefly about the drama and grief that follows, Bellamy’s soothing words — _They don’t have to understand._ You meet each other’s reluctant families. Your mother grows to love and trust him. You marry in a small chapel with only your closest family and friends. Bellamy joins the Peace Corps with you (he can’t, you tell yourself, he doesn’t have a degree, but you do not let that shatter your dream). You return and find a job and soon you are pregnant. You buy a little bungalow in the shade of an oak tree. You watch fireworks on the lawn on the Fourth of July and reminisce about how this time however many years ago, you met in such strange circumstances. 

Bellamy stops short when he sees your car. You click your keys as you round to the driver’s side and the car beeps happily at you.

“Is this your car?” he asks. “Do you drive this every day?”

You suddenly remember — you have been pretending every day for the past month that you’re waiting for a ride. 

“Yeah,” you admit. 

“Did your mom buy this for you?”

You nod, mortified. Nearly all your friends grew up poor. Your wealth makes you the odd one out all the time, and shamefully you wish you were poor like them, so your accomplishments could feel real, deserved. So you could earn your life, rather than having it given to you. So you could have a reason for being crazy.

You get in the car, which feels like an oven. Taylor Swift — not even the newer songs, but the country stuff from 2006 — comes over the bluetooth and you quickly switch it off. Bellamy laughs. 

As you hit the main road, Bellamy asks, “Why do you wait outside with me?”

You can feel his stare. You wish he would return your glasses as much as it thrills you he is wearing them, a piece of you, a tiny trespass, a strange intimacy.

You shrug.

“Come on,” he says. Still you say nothing. “Tell me,” he adds, and it’s not a request but a demand.

“I wanted to bum a smoke. My mom doesn’t let me smoke in the house.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I like you, okay? I wanted to get to know you.”

“Do you like-like me, or just like me?”

“Are you twelve?”

He puts his hand on your thigh, fingers dangerously close to your cunt. You are wearing cotton shorts. One inch up, and he’ll be able to feel how wet you are. 

“Tell me,” he says again, digging his fingers in. 

Thoughtlessly, you spread your legs. If he touches you, you will surely crash into a median. You know your face is red and you hope he assumes it is from the heat. The car has not yet cooled despite the full blast of the air conditioning.

“I think you’re hot, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

He pulls his hand away and says smugly, “Yes.”

 

* * *

 

You end up at a diner in a brown vinyl booth with tears in the upholstery and stuffing coming out. The walls are covered in license plates. The menu is longer than the Cheesecake Factory menu. Bellamy orders coffee, a short stack, two scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, a side of bacon, and a side of sausage. You order a coffee and two over-easy eggs with an english muffin.

“Not hungry?” he asks.

“No, you just eat too much.” You slot your menu behind the caddy that is holding hot sauces, sweetener packets, ketchup, and two salt and pepper shakers that look like tiny Christmas elves. Bellamy pours several tablespoons of sugar into his coffee.

“Are you still at a two?” you ask.

His spoon clangs against the mug as he stirs. “No.”

“Higher or lower?”

He gives you a look that might be flirtatious. “Higher.”

“What was wrong?”

“I had a bad night.”

“What happened?”

He glances away, levity suddenly diminished. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

You kick him lightly under the table. “I tell you everything.”

“Trust me. You don’t want to know.”

“Yes I do.”

He purses his lips like he did while you were playing chess. “My girlfriend and I got into a fight.”

Girlfriend. Your voice stays level but suddenly your heart is racing and you fear you might start crying again. This is probably not a normal reaction. You sip your coffee, black, and hope he cannot see the way your hand trembles. You want to scream. “About what?”

“She made out with her boss.”

 _Are you going to break up?_ you want to ask, like a child asking when you can open your birthday presents. 

“I put my fist through his car window,” he says. “Left before he could call the cops. She’s been blowing up my phone all morning.”

 _You should break up with her. She sounds like a bitch,_ you almost say. 

“How long have you been together?” you ask.

“Six years.”

Six years ago, you were fourteen. Just a baby. Six years ago, he was twenty-eight.

“It’s not the first time this has happened,” he adds, spinning his mug around slowly with his thumbs. “She’s a blackout drunk. We agreed that if I got help for my —” he makes a vague hand gesture in the air, “whatever, then she’d go to rehab.”

“Did she?”

“Not yet. I don’t think she will.” He takes a slow sip of coffee, looks out the window into the near-empty parking lot, the abandoned gas station next door. Your sunglasses are perched atop his head. By the cash register, a boombox radio is playing eighties pop hits. “IOP hasn’t changed me into the man she wants me to be. I asked for a two-week extension.”

You’ll both graduate at the same time. You are thrilled he is sharing this piece of himself with you, that you can be here for him the way he has been there for you. You are more thrilled that there is trouble in paradise. 

You tilt your body forward just so, elbows in to squeeze your breasts subtly together. “Who does she want you to be?”

“Not an asshole.”

“Are you an asshole?”

He looks into your eyes only briefly before flicking his gaze to your chest, and keeps it there for a long moment, shamelessly, before glancing back up. “I liked it better when you didn’t talk.”

“I liked it better when I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

“I told you you didn’t want to know.”

“Are you going to break up with her?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not to me.”

“I thought you were a good girl.”

“Is that what you want?”

He smiles in a way that makes your stomach lift like driving quickly over a hill. “No.”

 

* * *

 

Bellamy directs you to a small ranch house tucked in a suburb outside of town. It’s nicer than you were expecting — flowers, a porch swing, two-car garage opened to reveal the beat-up Accord and a motorcycle — and you chastise yourself for making assumptions.

You imagine him inviting you in, offering you a beer even though it is only two p.m. Maybe he kisses you in the kitchen and walks you back to his room, tossing clothes on the way. He bends you over his bed. He hurts you. He worships you.

You put the car in park and wait for him to say something. An eternity passes in silence. He clears his throat. “Echo’s inside.” 

“Do you live together?” 

“For now, yeah.”

Another silence. Two birds carry small twigs to a gutter nest. The cicadas are deafening this year.

“Give me your phone,” he says, hand held out. 

You unlock it and pass it over. He puts his number in and hands it back. 

“Text me at eight. She works thirds.” 

“I will.”

He looks at you a long moment, then takes your glasses off his head and slots them back on your face. His hand idles at your chin. His eyes drop to your mouth, and he drags his rough thumb over your bottom lip. “Talk to you soon, Ray-Bans.”

 

* * *

 

At eight p.m. on the dot, you take a picture of your sunglasses collection and send it to Bellamy. 

 _Who needs that many pairs of aviators lol,_ he says.

_I do. They’re very important._

You wait a whole minute for him to reply, but he doesn’t. 

 _I texted you at 8 like you asked,_ you add.

 _Good girl,_ he replies, with a wink emoji.

You are not used to pursuing people you like. Usually they pursue you. You have never had to try so hard. You send a blushy face in return, followed by, _Are things better with echo?_

 _She wouldnt talk to me today,_ and then, _It might be over idk_

_Is she dating her boss? The one she made out with?_

_Doubt it. I think shes telling the truth. Got drunk and out of hand_

You do not like this answer. _Are you going to break up with her?_

_Second time youve asked me that. Got a vendetta?_

_Just looking out for your best interests_

_Im sure lol_

The conversation moves more easily after that, like it does in IOP. You text well into the night, until your phone slips from your fingers, and you fall into a dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

 

It is the second-to-last week of IOP and you have been texting with Bellamy all weekend. When he arrives, he is carrying two Starbucks cups. He nods to the receptionist, who marks his attendance, and sits beside you. He passes you one of the coffees. 

“Black, right?” he asks.

You nod. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

You are silent as the waiting room begins to fill. You and Bellamy occupy a secluded corner, away from the substance users, who are more friendly with each other than your group is. You bounce your knee nervously. It is one thing to have a friend in group therapy. It is another to overtly flirt with them and spend the weekend texting.

Bellamy claps a hand to your knee and presses down. You stop bouncing. When he goes to pull away, you grab his hand and bring it back. 

“I like it when you touch me.”

“Yeah?” he asks, skirting higher up your thigh. His callouses catch on your smooth skin. His knuckles have purpled over, the scabs not yet healed. You are wearing your shortest shorts and a crop top today.

You spread your legs. “Yeah.”

“Tease.”

“Try me.”

Marcus comes out and beckons group 3 back. The hours tick by slowly. Murphy is being well-behaved. Jasper is absent. Jacapo does his best to fill the silence but eventually runs out of things to say. It is only the four of you today.

“It’s been a while since you’ve shared, Bellamy,” Marcus says. “Why don’t you go next?”

You sip your coffee, expecting him to decline, like he always does. 

“Things have been, I don’t know. Bittersweet, I guess.” He spins the fidget spinner between his fingers, a motion you thought you’d gotten used to, but now you think dark things when you look at his hands. His tattoo flexes with the movement. “My girlfriend made out with her boss. And I broke his car window.”

Murphy looks impressed, Jacapo surprised. Marcus remains complacent. 

“So now we’re, I don’t know. In limbo, maybe.” He continues about their living situation, how he inherited his mother’s house. Echo has nowhere else to go, and they’ve been together six years. She’s an MRI tech. They met in the ER. She refuses to go to rehab and insists she doesn’t have a problem, but he has hope for her. They’ve gotten through worse things, he says, but this time, he doesn’t want to.

“Why not?” Jacapo asks.

“I met someone.” He stops the fidget spinner abruptly and takes a long gulp of his coffee. You are getting the impression his hands and mouth always have to be busy. “It just seems like a sign. Maybe it’s time to move on. But also, you know, six years is a lot to throw away, and I have no idea how to approach her about moving out.”

“Does anyone have any feedback for Bellamy?” Marcus asks.

“Tell her the truth,” you say. “She cheated on you. She’s an alcoholic who isn’t putting the same effort in as you are. You should try things out with this new girl and see what happens.”

“I don’t know,” Murphy says. “It’s a bad idea to hop into a new relationship that fast. You’re bringing in all your old baggage.” He looks right at you and adds, “You don’t want to rebound with this poor young girl, do you? You might break her heart.”

“I never said she was young,” Bellamy says.

“Oh? My bad.”

“I think as long as the new girl knows what’s going on,” you say, “it’s up to her to decide if she wants to move forward.”

Marcus glances at the clock. It’s ten on the dot. “Let’s break for now and when we come back, we’ll learn how to maintain boundaries.”

Bellamy leaves the room without looking at you. You follow him, knowing Murphy’s eyes are on you the whole time. Outside, Bellamy does not stop at the column, but continues to the field. You follow him nearly to the back of the building.

“Where are we going?” you ask.

He stops and grabs your arm, pushes you against the brick wall and presses his mouth to yours. Your hands fly to his hair. His fingers dig into your hips, tightly enough to nearly lift you off your feet. He kisses you fast and hard. You have difficulty keeping up with him. You gulp in air. No one has ever kissed you like this.

“You have no idea,” he says, his teeth at your throat, “how much I want you.”

“Enough to end a six-year relationship?”

“Real fucking close.”

“What can I do to push you over?”

“Christ,” he says, and slots his mouth against yours again. The morning sun bears down on you. Grass tickles your ankles and you feel a bug crawl up your leg that might not be real. You don’t care. His hands cup your ass. You both taste like coffee. You don’t care. You were cheated on once, and accused of it yourself. Infidelity and betrayal are what led you here. You should feel guilty. You should push Bellamy away and tell him to work his shit out with Echo. You don’t care.

A sharp whistle breaks you apart. You look over to see Murphy, cigarette in hand, trying to signal you with a wide, ambiguous hand gesture. You straighten your clothes. Bellamy adjusts himself. 

“I’ll go around the other way,” he says.

“Meet you back in there.”

When you reach the front of the building, you see what Murphy was trying to warn you against — the psychiatrist and nurse, heading toward the parking lot, where they would have seen you in plain view once they’d driven away. 

“Thanks,” you say to Murphy as the automatic doors part for you.

“Any time.”

 

* * *

 

You text Bellamy nonstop through the rest of the week. He buys you coffee on Wednesday and Friday. He does not touch you, you think because he knows you want him to, but also, he is dragging his feet breaking up with Echo, and you know he feels guilty. You try to comfort him, to be the bigger woman, the woman he needs you to be. You spent Wednesday learning about self-sabotage, and wonder if you and Bellamy are sabotaging your recoveries by burying your problems in each other. Again, you find you cannot care. Bellamy soothes an ache that has lain in you for so long. 

Sunday afternoon, you are picking up a refill at the pharmacy. You glance at your phone. Bellamy has not texted you in hours, and you hope that is a sign he’s breaking up with Echo. Briefly you wonder if they’re having sex. A dark feeling rears in you, but is soon interrupted by the pharmacist. You tell him your name and he goes back to find your medication. You see a mother in the Summer Fun aisle, leaning over and whispering harshly at her son. He is gripping a toy and whining. She takes the toy from him and puts it back on the shelf, and the boy whines loudly enough that an older gentleman gives the mother a dirty look. The mother slaps the boy’s face and hisses something. You want to look away, but you can’t. The boy does not cry. He doesn’t even look shocked, only lowers his head as his cheek turns bright pink, and follows his mother out of the store.

“Miss?” the pharmacist says. You glance at him, and down at his hands, where he is holding a little baggie with your name on it. You’ve forgotten where you are. You barely hear him as he asks you if you have any questions about the medication. You sign for the meds and take the bag and rush out of the store, but the boy and his mother are gone.

You spend the rest of the day in a strange haze, where you feel as if you are skipping through time and have no control over yourself. One moment you are drawing your backyard with charcoal and the next you are partway through a shower. You put your hairbrush in the refrigerator. You call your mom “Abby.” You are convinced that South Virginia is a state, and you have been there.

At night, your mother asks if you’re feeling okay. You’re fine, you tell her. She presses a hand to your forehead. You got up to get something, but you can’t remember what. You are holding an ice cream scoop in your hand, but you have no ice cream in the freezer. It is eleven p.m. and Bellamy still has not texted you. Echo should be at work by now.

“Mom?” you ask, clutching the ice cream scoop tightly in your fist.

“Hm?” She is flipping through an IKEA catalogue.

“Did you ever hit me?”

“Of course not.”

You remember. You remember her pulling down your pants and spanking you, humiliating you in public. You remember slaps to the face. You remember squirming out of her grip and falling, hitting your head on pavement, and your father yelling at you for being so stupid. Normal things, you always told yourself. Things everyone deals with. Nothing to get upset over.

“You used to slap me,” you say, though your voice is distant and thin.

“Well, yes,” she replies. “But I never hit you in _anger._ It was for your own good.”

“So I deserved it.”

She turns a page, barely listening. “You were a child. You didn’t respond to reason. What else could I have done?”

You set the scoop gently on the counter and bid your mother goodnight. You go to your room and lock the door and take deep breaths. You use all the coping skills you have learned in IOP — I am safe, you tell yourself. I am loved. I feel upset because of a lot of reasons, too many reasons, and it is understandable why I feel this way, except it isn’t, because I don’t understand why I feel this way.

You don’t know why you’re crying. _There’s no crying in baseball,_ your father used to tell you. You have never played baseball. You bite your wrist to silence yourself, so your mother will not hear you. You listen as she flips off the lights and goes to bed. This is ridiculous, you think. Nothing bad has happened to you. Nothing bad is happening. Everyone gets hit sometimes. Everyone gets a knife pulled on them at least once. Everyone gets falsely accused of abuse and has to legally testify in order to maintain their academic standing. It’s not a big deal. You deserved it all. 

Before you know what you are doing, you click Send on Bellamy’s name. The phone rings three times. You hope he is not angry with you for calling. You hope Echo does not answer. 

“Clarke?” he asks. 

“Hi.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

You cannot remember the last time you made a personal phone call. You’ve forgotten how they go. Do you talk next or does he? 

“How are you?” you ask.

“I’m fine. Why are you calling?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Hold on.” In the background, you hear the whoosh and clunk of what might be a sliding glass door. Is he going inside or outside? Does he smoke in his house or on the porch? Is Echo with him? “I’m not mad at you. I just want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“You sound like you did in week two. Your voice is all high-pitched like a kid’s.”

You were not aware that your voice changed so dramatically over the course of your recovery. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop that. Just tell me what’s up.”

“I don’t know, I — something happened.” A sudden sob falls from your throat. You clap your palm over your mouth. Tears fill your eyes.

“Clarke,” he says. “Tell me.”

“I —” You tumble into a fit. You are as stunned to be crying as you were during your breakdown, though this feels different. There is nothing crawling on you, no skittering noises, no moving shadows. 

“Give me your address. I’m coming over.”

“I live with my mom.”

“I’ll climb through your window.”

Your window is open. The neighbor’s wind chimes clang lightly in the breeze. Bullfrogs and crickets and cicadas, the ubiquitous song of summer. It is not too loud, your room not too bright. You probably do not need to go to the hospital again. A surge of gratitude — you know how it feels to shatter. You know that anything less than that can be endured.

You give him your address. You tell him your room is the one with the light on.

 

* * *

 

A motorcycle comes to a stop outside of your house. You take solace in the knowledge that your mother sleeps with a fan on. You have stopped crying for the moment, but a single flyaway thought about the boy at the pharmacy brings the tears back.

You meet Bellamy at your window. He hands you his helmet and climbs through. He kicks some papers off your desk but is otherwise graceful as he makes it to his feet.

“You couldn’t have moved your desk?” he asks, but before you can answer, he has you wrapped in his arms.

You bury your face in his chest, his soft t-shirt. You feel so small. You don’t know why he is being so sweet to you. You don’t deserve such kindness.

“Gonna tell me what happened?” he asks gently.

You pull away reluctantly and sit on the edge of your bed. He takes a seat in your desk chair. “There was a boy at the pharmacy,” you say, but your voice cracks on the final word and you are crying again. 

He takes your hand and kisses the back of it. “It’s okay, take your time.”

“He wasn’t doing anything wrong.” Your head is shaking back and forth. You feel like you might puke. “And his mom — she just _hit_ him.” It takes a long moment for you to compose yourself after that, but finally you manage, “And I was fine until I asked my mom, like, did she ever hit me? And she said she did, and I deserved it. I deserved all of it.”

“Come here,” he says, and somehow he maneuvers you onto his lap, where you curl up and tuck your forehead into his neck and breathe him in. He is wearing a jacket. He smells like smoke and leather. You play with the zipper. “It’s okay,” he tells you. “You didn’t deserve it.”

Eventually you calm enough to take a deep, steady breath. Bellamy is rubbing your back and idly peppering light kisses on your forehead. You think you are in love with him, and he is in love with you. Or maybe you are both in love, period, and have walked into each other’s crossfire. Maybe that’s all love is.

“Will you come to bed with me?” you ask. “I want to be held.”

He nods. You climb into bed. He takes off his jacket and shoes, and slides under the covers, curls behind you. He cannot seem to keep his hands or mouth off of you. He places light kisses against your neck, tucks his hand under your shirt and skates his fingertips across your belly.

“I guess I’m not recovered,” you say.

“I don’t think we ever will be. Not completely.”

He’s right. Other people broke you, and you must live your life inside of all these shards that are left. 

“Will you leave?” you ask.

“I have to.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“Does Echo know you’re here?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He gently brushes your hair from your face. “Try to sleep.”

By the light of the moon, you trace your finger over the lines of his tattoo, a seascape, you can see now. You imagine being at sea together, the two of you completely alone, no sign of land or people for hundreds of miles. Just you and him, rocked gently to sleep.

 

* * *

 

You dream of space heaters and tiny suns, and awaken to a sweat-damp back and a heavy presence behind you. Your covers are kicked off the bed. You are aware, distantly, that something is wrong, and slowly the feeling sharpens — the morning light is far too bright. Painful sparks prickle up your arm as you shift and blood returns to your hand. Bellamy is breathing deeply and quietly. Reluctantly, you glance at the clock, knowing already what you’ll find.

8:20 a.m. They will not let you in a minute late, let alone thirty-five. 

“Bellamy,” you whisper, shaking his arm. “Wake up.”

He groans, presses an unconscious kiss to your shoulder, and burrows closer, nuzzling you. How a man like him can be so cute, you do not know. 

“Bellamy, we’re late to IOP.”

He sits up and looks around, wide-eyed. For a second, he doesn’t seem to know where he is, or who you are. Just now, did he think you were Echo? Is this how he holds her when she gets home from work in the morning? 

“Shit.” He reaches for his pants. When did he take his pants off? Was there a moment in the night he woke up and decided to stay? 

“It’s too late,” you say. “They started already.”

He buries his face in his hands and takes measured breaths. You see now that he tends to hold himself to impossible standards. No wonder he can’t handle the necessary failures of his job. 

“It’s not a big deal,” you assure him, your hand on his back. Daring, you crawl to your knees and sidle behind him, run your fingers through his sweat-damp hair and press a light kiss behind his ear. “It’s our last week. We’ve only missed one session. Echo thinks you’re there, right?”

He lets out a long exhale and nods to himself. “Yeah.” 

You run your palms down his chest, his stomach, graze his cock lightly, which is half-hard but jumps in interest at your touch. “We have all morning,” you murmur against his neck.

 

* * *

 

You offer him a clean toothbrush, and while he’s in the bathroom, you scope out your breakfast options. As you’re staring into a cabinet of cereal and oatmeal, he comes up behind you and wraps his arms around your waist, kisses the juncture of your neck.

“I forgot to ask,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“One through ten?”

He breathes a soft laugh against your neck. “One through ten.”

“I don’t know, a three or four,” you lie. You have never felt better. This morning, you feel, is the peak of human experience. The relief of new love, freedom of an empty day, hope of life to come. Every second with Bellamy is a too-sweet dessert at a restaurant no one should be able to afford. 

You turn around to face him. “Will you make me feel better?”

His eyes fall to your chest and he plucks at the top button of your sleepy cow pajamas. Then the next button, and the next, all the way down until your top is undone. He parts your shirt, stares at your bare breasts. You stick your chest out in an invitation to touch them, but he only pushes your shirt off your shoulders and lets it fall to the ground. He tucks his fingers into the elastic of your shorts and underwear, and lowers them to your ankles. You step out of them.

“I want you naked all morning,” he says.

Your skin vibrates with the need to be touched. “Yes, sir.”

He gives you a small, dark smile. “You like being good for me, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know what I think.” He trails a single fingertip from your clavicle, between your breasts, over your stomach, stopping between your legs. You know you are already wet. His finger hovers above your clit. You feel its warmth, and fight the urge to squirm, force him to touch you. 

“What?”

“I think you try too hard to be good.” He sinks a finger into you. You gasp and grip the sink behind you.

“I want you to hurt me,” you say. 

He slots his other hand into your hair and pulls at the roots, tilting your face up toward him. 

“You can do better than that,” you say. 

He kisses you, bites your lip so hard you taste copper. He slides a second finger into you and fucks you roughly with them. Your hair is still in his grip. He pulls his fingers out and slaps your cunt repeatedly. You nearly scream.

He takes you by the hair, guides you out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he bends you over the arm of the couch. You hear the clatter of a buckle and the snap of his belt from its loops. Cool leather skates across your ass. 

“You want this?” he asks.

The staring patrons, your mother sitting in a lawn chair in the gardening aisle, bending you over her knee. You deserve it.

Your voice is stronger than you feel. “Yes.”

The belt cracks against you. At first you feel nothing, thunder without lighting, and then the pain sets in, a sharp stripe across your ass. 

“Again,” you say. He strikes you again. You squeeze your eyes shut. Tears sting your eyelids. “More.” Again and again, he cracks the belt over you, down your thighs, to the backs of your knees and back up. A trail of wet slips down your leg. You are crying, the pain worse now that he is going over existing welts, but you do not ask him to stop. Your face is buried in the upholstery and you can barely breathe through the sobs that wrack your body, harder than your breakdown, harder than your breakthrough. 

The clank of the belt to the floor. His cool hand on your blazing skin. “That’s enough,” he says.

You shake your head. “More.”

“That’s enough,” he says, more firmly. 

Something inside of you has shifted, a broken piece settled into place. You gulp deep breaths, roll your head to the side and look at all your family portraits lined up on the mantle. A thump. You glance back. Bellamy has fallen to his knees. He spreads your cunt apart and smears your wetness around with his thumb, then settles his mouth on you and eats you out. You grab a throw pillow and stifle your moans into it. He grips your burning ass in his hands and spreads you farther apart, trails his tongue up and circles your asshole. His thumb assaults your clit. It’s too much. You come screaming into the pillow, toes scrabbling at the carpet. He brings you down gently, lapping up your aftershocks, and pulls away.

“Stand up,” he says. 

You struggle, so he helps you. You sag against his chest. Your knees barely support you. 

“You haven’t done that before, have you?”

You shake your head. You want to tell him it doesn’t matter, it’s still exactly what you needed, and you wonder why you’ve wasted nearly two months in IOP when Bellamy could have been hitting you into recovery this entire time. 

The next few moments are a haze. Bellamy gives you a box of tissues — you are so sick of being handed tissues — and guides you back to your bedroom. There is a bottle of lotion by your bed, and he uses it to soothe the sting, his wide palms sliding it up and down your thighs, digging into your lower back and shoulders. You slept so well last night, but you could sleep again. 

“When is it your turn?” you ask, the sound muffled in the pillow.

He kisses your cheek. “I’ll take my turn soon.”

“No condom,” you say. Your birth control is on the nightstand.

“I don’t know about that.”

“You want me to be a bad girl, right?” 

He huffs a smug laugh and does not argue. The rustle of fabric, tug of a zipper. You move to roll on your back but he presses his palm into your shoulder and holds you down. The blunt head of his cock pauses briefly at your entrance before he shoves into you. You shout. The stretch is almost unbearable. Finn was small and you’ve never used a dildo. Bellamy takes your wrists and brings them above your head, pins them down with a single hand while he holds your hip with the other and fucks into you. Your tears are gone now, as well as your thoughts and emotions and all the other things you’d be dealing with if you’d gone to IOP. This is what true peace feels like — being held down and pounded into, filled so full nothing else can fit inside you.

You wonder if he fucks Echo like this. You wonder if he is thinking of Echo now. You cant your hips up, spine curved painfully, inviting him to fuck you harder. He hits a spot that you’ve never felt before, and you feel yourself rising rapidly to climax. You have never come more than once during sex.

“Oh fuck,” you say, “right there, oh fuck, harder.”

Your fingers go numb in his grip. You imagine all the marks he will leave on you. He is nearly crushing you with his body. You struggle, just to see what will happen, but you cannot move.

“Please, please, please,” you’re saying, though you don’t know what you’re asking for. You’ve never been made to feel like this. The pressure builds and builds, so far past the farthest point you’ve ever gone. You’ve stopped breathing. Every muscle tenses. You’re not even making sounds anymore.

Bellamy pulls out and lets you go. A spasm courses through you. Wetness spills out of you, down your thighs to your knees, probably all over Bellamy and the bed. Maybe you should be embarrassed, but you can’t be bothered. He runs a hand up and down your thigh while you continue coming, aborted moans an ugly staccato in your throat. 

Bellamy twists you onto your back, politely past the wet spot, and lifts your leg to your chest. He pushes back into you and kisses you gently. This time he goes slowly. He took off his shirt — you can see the continuation of his tattoo, across and down his chest, a lighthouse on his ribs and a whale over his hip. His face is tightened in concentration, trying not to come, maybe, but as much as you would like this to last forever, you are ready for him to finish. 

“Inside me,” you say.

He nods, goes a little faster now, and buries himself deep as he comes. You kiss his temple, run your fingers through his hair. This close, you can see shocks of silver in his roots, dots of white in his beard. He has seen almost twice as much life as you. He has seen infinitely more death. 

He rolls over onto his back, crook of his arm thrown over his eyes as he catches his breath. 

You prod his ribs. He flinches, like he’s ticklish. You file that away for later. “How do _you_ feel?”

“Both great and very not great.”

“Echo?”

“Echo.”

After a long silence, he adds, “I really like you, Clarke.”

Here it comes, you think. “But?”

“But nothing. I just really like you.” He glances at you. “If we do this, we have a tough road ahead. We’re both severely fucked-up people.”

“At least we’re aware of it. That puts us ahead of all the couples who have no idea how damaged they are.”

“Couple.”

“What?”

“You said ‘couple.’”

“Well, yeah.”

“So you really want to do this.”

“I really want to do this.”

“Even though I have serious anger management issues, and you’re borderline as hell, and we’re both extremely possessive and jealous.”

“Okay, but look where we are. We got help for our problems. And we’re on different paths, going at different paces, but at least we’re _on a path,_ which is more than I can say for my mom or Finn or Lexa or Echo or anybody who refuses to acknowledge they need help.”

“Yeah,” he says with a small nod. “Yeah, that’s true.”

You lean up on your elbow and look down at him. “And maybe it’s not forever, you know? Maybe I’m what you need to break up with Echo, and you’re what I need to face next semester. If we’re on different paths, maybe ours only converge for a mile or two.” 

He cups his hand behind your neck and pulls you down for a kiss. It grows heated quickly, and you find yourself rutting against his thigh, mostly sure you could come again if you focused, but he lets you go and says, “Let’s eat something first.”

Bellamy has three bowls of cereal, two cups of coffee, and a big glass of orange juice. You have one bowl of cereal and when you finish before him, you’re antsy for more sex. You tease him for being old and having a year-long refractory period, which irritates him just enough to bend you over the sink and fuck you right in front of the window, in view of all your neighbors, should any of them be home at ten in the morning on a Monday. He comes in you again, then lifts you onto the counter, sinks to his knees, and eats his own come out of you. He stares up at you the whole time, and you can’t seem to tear your gaze away, eyes locked together even while you’re coming on his mouth. 

You shower together, and spend the rest of the morning cuddling and talking. He plays with your fingers, and if he’s not speaking, he’s kissing you, whatever is closest to him, his hands and mouth always, always busy. 

You lose track of time. His phone rings, UB40’s “Red Red Wine.” He bolts upright and picks up his jeans from the floor, digs into his pockets. “Fuck. _Fuck,”_ he says as he slides his thumb across the screen. “Hey, babe.”

His volume is up. You can hear the woman on the other end. Her voice is deeper than you expected. You sit up, ready to leave the room, but your curiosity gets the best of you, battling against the sick jealousy roiling in your gut.

“Where the hell are you?” 

His mouth opens in an attempt to answer, but nothing comes out.

“I came to take you to lunch,” she says, surprisingly calm. “They said you didn’t show up today.”

He rests his head in his hand, drags his palm down his face.

“You’re not at home. Your bike isn’t here.”

“I don’t want to lie to you,” he says.

Slightly less calm now. “Where the fuck are you, Bellamy?”

“I’m heading home. We’ll talk then.” He hangs up. His phone falls from his hand and thuds dully on the floor. You are afraid to touch him, in case it makes him angry. 

“I guess it’s time,” he says. 

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Not right now.” He bends down and picks up his jeans, pulls them on. His shirt is next. You watch his every movement, in case this is the last time you see him like this, in case he decides not to break up with her. Maybe you will both graduate on Friday and it will be the end. Another fleeting, transient relationship of IOP. 

He stands and shrugs on his jacket. He spent so long looking at you, and now he can’t meet your eyes. “I’ll see you Wednesday, for better or worse,” he says, grabbing up his helmet, and even though he doesn’t have to, he climbs out of your bedroom window.

 

* * *

 

Wednesday morning, Bellamy arrives right as Marcus is calling you back, so you do not get a chance to ask what happened. You texted him Monday night and he didn’t respond. On Tuesday, you sent him a funny picture of a cat stuck in some blinds, a distant connection to his climbing through your window that you are sure now probably wasn’t funny. To your horror, you texted him again Tuesday night asking if he was okay. You couldn’t help yourself. He still didn’t respond. You held imaginary conversations with him in your head. You nearly faked a panic attack just so you would have an excuse to call him, so he would come to your rescue again. Maybe pre-IOP you would have done that, but now you see that kind of behavior is destructive and immature.

You try to make eye contact, but he ignores you. You take a seat and he does not sit beside you. There are two new people today, and you don’t pay much attention as they introduce themselves. You have gotten worse about remembering names, faces, stories. When it’s your turn, you say, “My name is Clarke and I’m batshit.” Bellamy only says his name, arms across his broad chest, legs spread out, head resting against the wall, like on your first day. Murphy looks at you, eyebrows raised as if to say, _Problems?_ You ignore him.

The next two hours are agony. You can’t focus on doodling, and you can’t stare at Bellamy without tipping everyone off that you’re infatuated with him. Not even Murphy’s attack on Jasper for being an entitled, whiny teenager is enough to make the time pass. 

Ten minutes before break, the nurse comes in and beckons Bellamy back to see the psychiatrist. Second to last day, of course you have final evaluations. On break, you go outside to see if Bellamy was released yet, but the psychiatrist's door is closed, and the only person outside is Murphy, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. 

“This is why you don’t fuck people you meet in group therapy,” he says.

“What are you on now, Murphy? Week thirty? Is IOP a life sentence for you?”

It’s a low blow. You know it’s mostly true. He graduates and comes back, over and over, in part because he can’t work and IOP offers him very necessary structure. He does ECT every other month. You cannot imagine living his life. 

“The relationships you make here aren’t real,” he says, and flicks his cigarette away before returning to the building.

The next two hours are slower than the first, only slightly more bearable because you have your own final evaluation with the psychiatrist. It’s short. You give him all the answers he wants to hear. The medication is great. Yes, you have your own psychiatrist and therapist lined up after you graduate. No, you have no negative side effects. Yes, you feel that you have gotten a lot out of IOP. Yes, you are prepared to return to school next month. 

You come back with a half hour to spare. Jasper passes you a handout which lists the differences between aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive behaviors. It has black lines down it like it was printed by a shitty Xerox, and the lists are peppered with misspellings and formatting errors. Instead of bullet points, the author used hyphens. You slide it into your folder, which is thick, warped, and covered in smudged drawings. You drew “IOP” in big bubble letters on the front, the kind you used to draw when you were in high school. 

Finally the proverbial bell rings and you are dismissed. Bellamy is the first out the door. You get held back behind Jasper, who is chatting with Marcus, and they’re walking slowly down the narrow hallway. You cannot slide past them. You make it to the lobby and rush out the doors and shout, “Bellamy!”

He doesn’t stop his trajectory to his motorcycle, hand cupped in front of a cigarette to light it. He walks faster than you. You jog to catch up with him, and stop him by grabbing his collar and pulling. “Don’t you fucking run away from me.”

He slaps your arm away. “Don’t do that.”

For a second, you are shocked with fear, and fight the impulse to turn belly up and apologize. You settle quickly — Bellamy is allowed to be mad at you. His anger has no bearing on who you are. Also, he’s being a dick, and you’re allowed to be mean to him.

“Why are you ignoring me?”

“Leave me alone, Clarke.”

You stand between him and his motorcycle. “If you don’t talk to me, I’ll —”

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll skip IOP on Friday and won’t graduate.”

He knows how much it means to you to get your dumb rock. 

He sighs, takes a long drag from his cigarette, and stares out at the skyline. “I broke up with her, okay? I told her about you. She didn’t react well.”

“What’d she do?”

“Went on a bender. Showed up to work drunk and got fired. Again.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, well, it fucking feels like it.”

You can relate to that. “So what happens now?”

“I try to untangle six years of toxic codependent bullshit.” 

“Is she moving out?”

“Not for a while.” He flicks the ash off his cigarette. It flies sideways in the wind. “She leveraged you. Said the least I could do after fucking a teenager was let her crash until she sorted her shit out.”  

“I’m not a teenager.”

“Closer than she is.” 

You watch his adam’s apple bounce as he swallows, and realize now how much of a front he’d been putting on in group. Close up, he’s ashen, eyes bloodshot. He seems brittle, splitting at the seams. 

“I came here because I couldn’t cope with people ODing,” he says. “I still can’t cope with it, but now I know all the ways my life is fucked.” His hair blows into his eyes and he tames it back with his fingers. “You know what Marcus told me in EMDR? He told me to question my attraction. He says I’m only attracted to women who need me. My own interest in another person is a red flag. Can you fucking believe that?”

Yes, you want to tell him. You can believe it because it’s true of you too. You are only attracted to people who hold their approval above your head, so you have to jump to reach it. You perform. You make a game of it, how to be the perfect other. How to fit neatly into every box you’re handed, no matter how small. Bellamy has given you his approval, but it is tenuous at best. At any given point, you want more of it. His gaze is an addiction. You want to drown in it.

“Look,” he says. “This is a mess. I like you, but I love her, and I’m going to for a long time. I’m giving you an out, right here, right now. You can walk away, no harm done, and maybe we can connect again once Echo’s gone.”

You realize he does not know you at all. You do not back down from loving difficult people. You admire this about yourself and hate it, too. People are not projects to fix. And yet the thought of walking away from Bellamy — you couldn’t even if you wanted to.

“Do you think you could ever love me the way you love her?” you ask.

He eyes you a long moment while he tugs on his cigarette. “When I was younger,” he begins, blowing out the smoke, “I would’ve said yes. But now — I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know if I can love in a healthy way. I know I want to fuck you. I know I’m obsessed with you. I know the way you look at me strokes my ego. I know I think about you tied up at my feet and all sorts of other sick shit I shouldn’t admit. But I don’t know if I can love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

“I don’t think I deserve to be loved any other way.”

He tosses his cigarette away, tugs your chin up, and kisses you. You are learning to love the taste of tobacco on his tongue. Of all the kisses he has given you, this one you can feel all the way to your knees. You clutch his jacket in your fists and drag him closer. You should be concerned that you will be caught by the staff. You should feel guilty about being the other woman. You should go home and see if the syllabi for your new classes have been posted. You should, you should, you should. Maybe you are no longer good, or maybe you never were. Maybe this — an angry, depressed paramedic kissing you in the hot parking lot of a behavioral health clinic — is what you deserve.

 

* * *

 

Friday morning, you wait outside your house, folder clutched against your chest. A neighbor is watering their flowers and waves at you. You wave back. You are small and blonde, smiling, wearing a sundress. Sometimes you see and hear and feel things that are not there. Sometimes reality slips from your grasp. Sometimes you believe you exist only to hurt. Bad things have happened to you. You have been dropped many times by the careless hands of those you’ve loved. Recovery has made you no less fragile, but you know now that life is not worth living if you cannot jump into another’s arms, and hope this time, they will catch you.

You hear the engine before you see the motorcycle come around the corner. Bellamy pulls up to the curb and takes off his helmet. You kiss him, a hard, dirty kiss, and when you glance up, your neighbor is staring at you, appalled. You put on Bellamy’s helmet, and climb onto the seat behind him.

 

* * *

 

Indra brought pastels and magazine cutouts of birds and butterflies. You begin drawing before she is finished explaining the assignment. Bellamy watches you instead of attempting his own, chin propped on his hand, and remarks the grace of your strokes, your eye for color and light. You bask in his attention. 

As you draw, you chatter about the classes you’re taking and how excited you are for the semester to start. You finish your butterfly and start on a hummingbird. You have a lovely conversation with Indra, who has an MFA from CUNY and owns an art outreach nonprofit, which is why she is here. You have deeply underestimated nearly everyone in this room. If nothing else, IOP has taught you to be less afraid. Another person’s success does not mean you have failed. Someone else’s perspective does not negate your own. You are valid all the time. 

After you clean up, Marcus gives you the basket of rocks. You pick one that says LOVE. Bellamy’s says PEACE. The new people whose names you have already forgotten do not have much to say about you, but they hold your rock in their hands and wish you the best in your recovery. Murphy gets your rock and says, “You don’t need my affirmation. That’s the whole point,” and passes it on.

When your rock gets to Bellamy, he thinks for a long time, and says, “I value your intelligence and your creativity, your commitment to your own improvement, and how happy you’ve made me in the darkest time of my life.” You worry that is too true and personal, but you are in group therapy, which exists to be true and personal.

When you get Bellamy’s rock, you are prepared. You have been thinking about what you want to say for weeks. “I appreciate how you challenge me, and how you’re always honest, even when there are consequences. I’m grateful to have you in my life for however long our paths converge.”

There are still two hours left of group, a stack of exit paperwork to sign, ongoing treatment to find, coping skills and self-love to learn, and a community of undergraduate artists to face in the coming month. But all of it seems so much smaller than it used to. 

**Author's Note:**

> I realized just now that this fic could be a prequel to [Coping Skills](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17686793). I'd have to fix a couple inconsistencies but otherwise it holds up as potentially being the same verse. 
> 
> Major thanks to aerialiste for the amazing beta! I would be nowhere without her.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr and twitter as bettsfic. If you enjoyed this fic, consider [reblogging the photoset](https://bettsfic.tumblr.com/post/185991713397/bettsfic-the-art-of-scraping-through-can-you).


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